In praise of cottage cheese, or, why this blog will continue to be unpopular

Lots and lots to catch up on, including pictures (yay!)
So the other night, in a fit of sketchy, hungover laziness, I was browsing chowhound and ended up reading a thread with about 450 replies (yes, i read them all) about what to eat with cottage cheese. Now, I've always loved the stuff, and often bring cottage cheese with herbs and diced up vegetables (tomatoes, cucumbers, onions) mixed in for lunch at work (much to the chagrin of my colleagues - who usually snoop through and steal bites of my lunches when I'm busy). Needless to say, this chowhound perusing created quite a craving in me, not having had the gloppy white stuff (lol) since before the holidays.

Part two of this story begins last Friday, when I worked a split with a three hour break. Enough time to come home and make lunch, which in my case equaled homemade tomato soup and grilled cheese. I've never made tomato soup, but decided to use my trusty source Deb @ smittenkitchen (surprise!)

Now, I wasn't such a fan of the soup on Friday, unfortunately. Coming home and spending about an hour cooking in between shifts for a somewhat disappointing lunch is, well...somewhat disappointing. However, I didn't add in the booze (which obviously would detract from the original recipe), and I realized after that I forgot to sprinkle the tomatoes with brown sugar before roasting. Of course a tomato dish sans requisite pinch of sugar might end up being somewhat bitter!

Well, tonight I was thinking of making something with the plethora of ingredients withering in the fridge - perhaps some creamy, pureed white beans with sauteed herby zucchini and...roasted leeks? Sounds good, but I needed something to tide me over, and to add a bit more vegetable goodness and colour to my menu. Something, more importantly, that I could eat with cottage cheese. As I was sitting here, reading food blogs and more chowhound, working up the energy and appetite for dinner, I remembered something about tomato soup, with cottage cheese mixed in?! Sounds...interesting...but I'll tell you, along with the pinch of sugar I stirred into the soup while reheating, it made the leftovers quite delicious!

Now to tackle the rest of dinner! (Don't worry I don't have to cook the beans from scratch, just thought that jar was "more" photogenic than a container of liquidy beans)

Here I am, back again

Well, well, well, its January, and I'm back! Apparently its resolution time, or my re-determination to cook as much as possible (and more importantly, keep track of it all). Perhaps its being housebound instead of out frolicking enjoying summer and fall, or busy with holiday preparation and traveling. Perhaps its a lighter, less busy schedule in my industry (yes, still THAT industry) around this time. In any case, I'm re-(re?) dedicating myself to writing here (instead of spending the majority of my internet time reading other food blogs). Maybe (hopefully?) no one else will ever read it, and this will be a way for me to keep track of what I cook, recipes I use, adjustments I make, and what I would change next time. I already have a hand-written kitchen journal, but (surprise!) I don't always mark things down there either.

Anyway, I finally have a "camera" (iphone4s), and have done a substantial amount of cooking lately. There is a blood orange marmalade (with gorgeous pictures) that I will post about asap. I also wanted to write about what I made last night (mostly for my own reference, sorry).

Deborah Madison's Basic French Lentils
I omitted the Cognac, used half/half water/chicken stock, and no additional shallots at the end.

served on creamy garlic mashed potatoes, with green beans, and

Garlic butter roasted mushrooms
I tried to half this, but perhaps should have used a bit more butter/oil, as there wasn't really any delicious garlickyness to mop up. The garlic itself was quite darkly "browned" - but still soooooo good in my opinion.

Well, here's crossing my fingers that I actually follow through on this somewhat regularly. Those blood orange marmalade pics are screaming to be adored.

snack addicted and falling apart - or...homemade corn tortillas

So, I am addicted to snacks. Hard for me to admit, but i realize it's true. I often get home from work around 1am, having started sometime in the afternoon (or perhaps at 11am). I usually manage to eat one (or two, on days i'm just working nights, not a double) healthy meals before work - but they often look like breakfast. Smoothies, omelettes, egg (mc)muffins, scrambled tofu. Then after working 8 hours on my feet, running around bringing other people food and drinks, I am starving. Sometimes I manage to eat a little something at work, but it's usually not the healthiest option, I on-and-off hate my employers and don't want to give them money for food, or I simply don't have time. Then I come home and want the quickest, most satisfying option. And I also happen to be someone who prefers cooking from scratch, eating healthy (as much as its possible with this in-between life).

Last time I posted about homemade wheat tortillas, and I've been wanting to make corn tortillas since then, I was just house-bound with a flu and didn't have masa farina in my pantry. BUT today I made the trek to the REAL, value grocery store (thanks Mom for the Christmas gift certificate) and managed to lug home about 30 pounds of groceries. See, I live in what one might call a "food-desert" - in an area full of high-rise apartments mostly full of business-men commuters and young families- of which I am neither. Within walking distance yhere is a vegetable/fruit market downstairs where I do most of my shopping, and a sobeys express which is not a reliable, economical option for those of us who are struggling to make ends meet in this over-expensive city.

The point here, un-obvious as it may be, is that I like snacks :) Also, I bought 10 avocados (supposedly 2 bags of 5 for 5$) at Metro a week ago. The online flyer advertised 10 for 5$, I went (after midnight on my way home from a dinner party) and bought them and was told more than that, argued with the teller (which I NEVER EVER do) about the price - then realized the next day that flyer started the NEXT day (or perhaps after midnight the day I was there?!?!)

So - angry guacamole - check. Attempting to make corn tortillas by hand, discovering they are much more difficult to roll out than flour tortillas - and thus falling apart - check. Soon to be (crunchy, salty) snack food, made from scratch by my own hands - check!

Guacamole:
4 small avocados (thought they would be overripe, but apparently not heating my kitchen kept them nice and green)
2 LARGE cloves of garlic, minced (seriously, I had almost 1/4 cup of minced garlic from 2 cloves)
juice of 1 1/2 limes (not very juicy limes)
**I like it garlicky, and acidic!
generous pinch or two of salt
1/3 of a jalapeno, chopped (I might be tempted to add more if not perhaps serving to those less heat-a-philic)

Tortillas:
1 cup of masa harina
1/4 tsp kosher salt
3/4 cup of warm/hot tap water

Mix together salt and flour, slowly add water while mixing with hands, in a circular motion, to bring the mixture together into a dough. Alternately add more flour and/or water to make the dough a workable consistency. I still haven't quite found this consistency, but did manage to roll out a few, a bit more thick that I would have liked. Then cook in a large skillet, over medium-high heat, ~45 seconds per side. These are VERY tasty, so much better than store bought, and its hard to even find store bought corn tortillas in Toronto (unless you venture into Kensington, which I do often, but its far enough from my house to not be a 1am, on the way home from work, option).
I then brushed one side with canola oil, sprinkled on more salt, and baked at 375 degrees farenheit for 8 minutes.

Stay at home vacation - or, an evolving soup and evolving me

I started this blog a little less than a year ago, posted just a few times, then abandoned it. There were a lot of (not so good) things going on in my life at that time, and I wasn't in the best space personally. I've changed some over this past year; my past two days of "stay-at-home-vacation" have shown me just how much. I've had a lot of time of lately, the restaurant industry is not exactly booming post-holiday madness, and I've found myself bored, apathetic, and unmotivated. Sure I still cook lots, spend time with friends, do a bit of yoga (not nearly enough) - but I didn't take pleasure in any of that. It felt a bit like just going through the motions, doing the things I thought I enjoyed, without gaining any actual joy from the process.

Yesterday I planned to catch up on some things at home, not having been here for most of this year so far. I cleaned, exercised, and made dough for homemade tortillas, did some research on holistic nutrition, then in the afternoon I started coming down with a cold. Having done all this reading on nourishing and healing foods, I knew I wanted to fight my oncoming illness naturally. I made a Mexican garlic soup with chipotle, drank tea with lemon and honey, and about a million glasses of water. I find it a bit funny that one of the few posts I made a year ago was also about making soup to combat a cold. There's just something about soup that is so comforting.

I generally lead a fairly unroutine lifestyle, with day shifts, night shifts and splits, and I find it hard to really be consistent with all the things necessary for true health. Having this time off lately has given me the chance to recommit myself, and to reconsider working in an industry that can be so detrimental physically and mentally. To end a long ramble - a year ago I wouldn't have been feeling so peaceful, refreshed and remotivated having so much ME time, but maybe I'm finally ready to start practicing more of the things I believe in. Not because I'm going through the motions, but because I recognize the positive impacts they can have on me, and I believe that I deserve it.

Hopefully this can be something I follow through on when I start working a crazy schedule again, or perhaps I'll finally take the steps to figure out what I want to do professionally that will make me more fulfilled. One thing is for sure, if I DO maintain this blog I need to get a working (non-cell phone) camera!


Mexican Garlic Soup with Chipotle and Lime

As usual I didn't exactly follow a recipe when I made this, or write one down after but the basic idea was to make a spicy, garlicky, broth to sooth my sore throat and cough. I found the lime kind of strange, as I was hoping for Mexican flavours, but it reminded me of Thai Tom Yum, so I tried to play it down by adding more chipotle, tomato, cumin and stock. I also thought the broth could use something else to add a focal point - chicken, tofu, beans - so today I added more stock, chickpeas, spinach and a bit of paprika.

The basic structure:

Saute in olive oil:
1/2 medium onion, diced
10 cloves of garlic, diced
1/2 jalapeno, diced

Add:
3 canned roma tomatoes, chopped, along with their liquid (I ended up adding more like half the can in the end)
2 cups chicken stock
1.5 cups water
juice of half a lime
1 small chipotle in adobo sauce, minced, along with some of their sauce

Simmer 20-30 minutes, taste, season, and adjust seasonings. For me this meant adding more chipotle and adobo, more tomatoes, some chopped fresh parsley, and some ground roasted cumin seeds.

Today I added another 2 cups chicken stock, the remaining 3 tomatoes and juices that I had leftover, about a teaspoon of paprika, 1.5 cups cooked chickpeas, a bit more adobo sauce, and cooked that for 20 mins, then added half a bundle of spinach, cut into bite sized pieces. And I served it with a homemade tortilla that I brushed with olive oil, sprinkled with kosher salt and minced garlic, then toasted in the oven on 450 until slightly crispy.

Homemade wheat tortillas
recipe from Kitchenstewardship.com

I only had a bit of whole wheat flour so I used that and the rest was organic all purpose.

Mix:
2 cups flour
1 tsp salt

Blend in (with pastry cutter, until it looks like fine meal/pea-sized butter chunks):
1/4 cup room temperature butter, cut into pieces

Slowly mix in (with a fork until it comes together):
1/2 cup of room temperature water

Knead with your hands a few minutes until a dough forms. It will be fairly soft and sticky. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate 4-24 hours. In my case after I started feeling sick yesterday I left it until this morning and then made fresh tortillas for a black bean and egg fajita for breakfast. Just let the dough warm up again, divide it into 8-11 balls, and roll each one out as thin as possible, then cook in a frying pan or skillet over high heat, about 2 minutes on each side.

Finally, a night off to cook for myself

So I have had a couple of nights off in the past week - Sunday I made red lentils with fried cabbage and caramelized onions (and a bunch of cumin) from one of my new favorite food blogs: http://smittenkitchen.com/2007/02/confessions-of-a-cumin-junkie/

Then I have been working nights since then. Tonight was my first night off at home alone for awhile, and I ended up reading smitten kitchen and then making dinner. A simple salad of red leaf lettuce, blue cheese, walnuts, thinly sliced red onion and apple, with a kozlics bordeaux mustard vinagrette. Roasted spaghetti squash and a basic tomato sauce - one chopped leek and 3 garlic cloves, sauteed for 5-10 minutes in olive oil, then add a can of italian plum tomatoes (whole, crushed by hand), some salt, and simmer for awhile...??? until your desired consistency is reached i suppose. I like my tomato sauces pretty loose, and I love this one because it gives simple, pure, intense tomato flavour. Added a sprinkle of red pepper flakes at the end, after cooking for maybe 45 minutes? In this case I acutally wanted a bit of a thicker sauce - because I was eating it with squash which can be a bit watery itself - so was lucky that the can of tomatoes I used had a thicker juice.
THEN - even though I'm already stuffed (!) I made a mini-apple crisp. Realized late in the process that I don't have rolled oats (what?) so I used wheat bran instead. When I was growing up my mom always made apple crisp with just a brown sugar/butter/flour topping, so the oat thing came later for me anyway. This ended up being delicious! And I'm not always great with fruit crisps - they often turn into fruit soups with a crumble topping. In this case I:

Cut 3 1/2 apples (empire and spartan) into 8ths, then halved/quartered those.
Buttered a SMALL glass baking dish (15x23 cm) and put the apple pieces in, with a ton of cinnamon (didn't realize the shaker-lid thing wasn't on!), a sprinkling of whole wheat flour, pinch of salt and squeeze of lemon juice.
Topped this with 1/3 cup wheat bran, bit less than 1/3 cup whole wheat flour, 1/3 cup brown sugar (unpacked), mixed with ~2 tbsps melted butter. Crumbled a bit of cold butter on top, then baked for about 30 minutes at ~375.

And YUM! I could have maybe cooked it a bit less as I like a bit of bite to my fruit, but the crumble topping is delicious, and the fruit part is neither soggy nor too dry. AND it's just the right amount for 2 servings. Now if only I had ice cream, although I think it's pretty un-necessary.

Also toasted the squash seeds at the same time, which I am now snacking on despite the lack of room in my belly. Good thing I did yoga earlier!

chickpea noodle soup

So I woke up this morning with a sore throat and stuffy nose. I guess I have finally succumbed to the winter cold - but I really can't complain as it's mid-February and I haven't really been sick in several seasons. But I'm craving a hot, brothy, mildly-spicy soup. Wasn't sure what I wanted exactly, just that I'm pretty tired and bored of all the soups in my repertoire. So I went to the store and bought a ton of veg for 10$! which I am super excited about - parsnips, onions, leeks, savoy cabbage, sweet potatoes, a red chili, garlic + a can of tomatoes and 2 grapefruit. Did I mention that was all for 10$! (paid for with a xmas gift card, so FREE to me!)

The other day I cooked some chickpeas, with bay leaf, celery, garlic, parsley, and peppercorn, thinking that I would make some channa masala. Instead I made saag paneer (tofu instead of paneer) last night, and I decided to go with a spicy chickpea noodle soup tonight to satisfy my sore-throat related cravings. Was planning on making veg stock tonight anyway, but really....as a colleague said, it might not be worth the effort. I DO love making it. And try to do so once a week or two. But if you are making soup anyway, what's the point of boiling all that veg, throwing it out, then cooking more veg in that liquid for the soup? I understand it contributes to depth of flavour...and I'm certainly not over veg stock! But, perhaps, it's not always necessary. In any case, I had the liquid from the chickpeas, so I used that.

I really wish I had a working camera - I searched for an old one, but must have lost it in multiple moves over the past year. All my chopped up veg looked so pretty :) Anyway, I sauteed:

1 leek
1 medium onion
1 large carrot
2 stalks celery
1 large parsnip
~all chopped/diced into smallish pieces
5-6 garlic cloves (no such thing as too much, if you ask me)
in 1-2 tbsps canola oil (I really need to research the best oils health-wise. I usually use olive oil for everything, but I know it doesn't have the best smoking point. So I want to look into canola vs. sunflower vs. peanut etc)
then added:
2 cups water
1/2 minced red chili

2 1/2 cups cooked chickpeas (cooked in the aforementioned broth)
4 cups chickpea cooking liquid

and then 2 more cups water b/c it seemed pretty full on chickpeas.

boil, then simmer for awhile....

Add some chopped savoy cabbage ~2 cups
and some chopped parsley ~ 1 cup

simmer more....

haha this is usually how my recipes go, I suppose I should figure it out before posting! But I think each one is always a trial. So maybe this blog is more for me, like a continuation of my kitchen journal. It always takes a few times to get something *right* - or to your taste that is, perhaps there is no RIGHT.

So at the end, I added another 1-2 cups of water, and some chili flakes.
OH! and, importantly, if you want it to be noodle soup, some noodles:
1 big handful of thin egg noodles, about 10-20 minutes before the end of cooking.

It's pretty yummy! Just what I need right now :)
you could of course, add fresh pasta, barley, cooked rice, whatever you like or have on hand. I was just craving a basic noodle soup due to my cold - ironically enough, since it's so simple and I'm so sick of all my other soups.

fleur de sel!

No recipes here! Just wanted to post to say that I am absolutely in love with fleur de sel. I picked up a small bag in Paris a year in a half ago, and barely use it, considering it one of those special occasion type things. But, someone at work recently posted an article from I believe the Toronto Star, with recipes for bitter seville orange marmalade. I'm not a big jam person (despite my canning efforts last summer), or *sweet* person in general, preferring savour, salty delights. However, I was inspired by this article the next time I was browsing at the grocery store and picked up a (what I hoped was) quality jar of seville orange marmalade. One of my new favourite breakfeast treats is this bitter marmalade on toast, with butter, topped with a (generous) sprinkle of fleur de sel.

And, I have been craving a deep, intense chocolate dessert this past week - perhaps due to the chocolate panna cotta winterlicious dessert we are currently serving, or maybe simply hormonal cycles. Due to laziness, and preoccupation with other matters, I opted tonight to instead eat chunky peanut butter, again generously sprinkled with fleur de sel, off a spoon with semi-sweet chocolate chunks! Wow guilty pleasure - not my usual fare, I promise you. BUT - I credit the fleur de sel for bringing it up above and beyond. What else can I possibly use this treasure for?!

disclaimer: I will actually post recipes, and not random late-night snacking (accidents?) soon!